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- CAAF: SW’s incorporated affidavit satisfied particularity, reliance on CA10 case not CAAF case was error
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- WaPo: They confided in ChatGPT. Their secrets ended up in court.
- CA6: No interlocutory appeal of denial of motion to suppress
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com
Search and Seizure (6th ed. 2025)
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-26,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 600,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 50,000 posts since 2003 (29,000 on WordPress as of 12/31/25) -
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Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
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"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't."
—Me -
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."
–Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others) -
“I am still learning.”
—Domenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)). -
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
—Shemaya, in the Thalmud -
"It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."
—Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.” 255 (1848) -
"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced."
—Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984). -
"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence."
—Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961). -
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987). -
"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today."
— Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting). -
"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property."
—Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765) -
"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment."
—United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) -
"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth."
—Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). -
"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable."
—Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987) -
"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected."
—Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967) -
“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded
rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
—United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)
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“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.”
—United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989) -
"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need."
—Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, Let it Bleed (album, 1969) -
"In Germany, they first came for the communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for
the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came
for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp] -
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.”
– John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper -
"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime."
—Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948) -
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
Website design by Wally Waller, Colorado Springs. 
Monthly Archives: March 2017
NACDL Report: Policing Body Cameras: Policies and Procedures to Safeguard the Rights of the Accused.
Washington, DC (Mar. 15, 2017) — The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), with support from the Foundation for Criminal Justice (FCJ), today releases Policing Body Cameras: Policies and Procedures to Safeguard the Rights of the Accused. This report … Continue reading
CAAFlog: Argument Preview: Considering whether the Fourth Amendment requires a temporal limitation for a search in United States v. Richards, No. 16-0727/AF
CAAFlog: Argument Preview: Considering whether the Fourth Amendment requires a temporal limitation for a search in United States v. Richards, No. 16-0727/AF by Zachary D Spilman:
D.Conn.: Protective weapons search of nightstand for a weapon invalid where def removed from house in handcuffs
The court does not believe an officer who claimed to have seen crack cocaine in a black opaque drawstring bag that was closed in the first search of his person. The court also does not believe that a much later … Continue reading
The Hill: Dems back body cameras for ICE agents
The Hill: Dems back body cameras for ICE agents by Rafael Bernal: Democrats in the House want to require immigration agents to wear body cameras amid concerns over increased immigration enforcement and the hiring of new agents.
CA10: Considering info omitted from SW affidavit, there was still PC and outcome wouldn’t change
There was probable cause for plaintiff’s arrest based on a co-conspirators statement. Omitted information was considered by the district court on the probable cause question, and this court agrees it wouldn’t change anything. Claeys v. Mohr, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
KS: Reclined seat here created inference of concealment of something; thus, PC
The officer saw a plastic baggie on the console with the corner torn off. Coupled with that, it was a reasonable inference that the passenger seat was reclined to conceal evidence. They added up to probable cause. State v. Howard, … Continue reading
D.Nev.: No RS for patdown; result of patdown and car search excised from SW affidavit and remainder lacks PC because informant uncorroborated
Defendant was stopped for speeding in a residential area, and he could be ordered out of the vehicle. His patdown, however, was unreasonable because there was no reasonable suspicion for it either by his word or actions or bulges in … Continue reading
NH: When the RS dissipated, the stop should have ended
By the time the officer called for the drug dog, the basis for the stop (LPN) had been resolved, and defendant should have been free to leave. There was no justification or reasonable suspicion to continue the stop for anything. … Continue reading
SD: Living with a parolee reduces your expectation of privacy in premises as to nonparolee
Defendant lived with a parolee, so she had a diminished expectation of privacy in their home (here a motel room) from parole searches. In a spot UA check, he tested positive at the home for methamphetamine, and then police asked … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Opening car door to check the Nader sticker for the VIN on RS was not unreasonable
Opening a car door to check the Nader sticker for the VIN was not unreasonable and did not involve invading a space inside the car. By the time that happened, there was reasonable suspicion. Then there was consent to search … Continue reading
The Root: US Border Agents Can Search Your Cellphone, New Senate Bill Would Require a Warrant First
The Root: US Border Agents Can Search Your Cellphone, New Senate Bill Would Require a Warrant First by Monique Judge: The Department of Homeland Security has reported that searches of cellphones by border agents increased five-fold in just one year, … Continue reading
WaPo: Facebook says police can’t use its data for ‘surveillance’
WaPo: Facebook says police can’t use its data for ‘surveillance’ by Elizabeth Dwoskin: Facebook is cutting police departments off from a vast trove of data that has been increasingly used to monitor protesters and activists. The move, which the social … Continue reading
Essay: Judge Gorsuch and the Fourth Amendment, 69 Stan. L. Rev. Online 132
Sophie J. Hart & Dennis M. Martin, Essay: Judge Gorsuch and the Fourth Amendment, 69 Stan. L. Rev. Online 132 (March 2017):
E.D.Wis.: USMJ declines adversary briefing by Google for a SW for email; take it to the USDJ
Google objected to a search warrant for two email accounts, whether located in the U.S. or not. Its motion for a briefing schedule is denied. Despite case law elsewhere, the District Judge is the one to take up adversarial litigation … Continue reading
IN: Def was stuck under car at gas station then freed herself before officer got over there; stop under community caretaking function was unreasonable
Defendant was stuck under her car at a gas station when the officer saw her. He started toward her and she freed herself, got in the car and was attempting to drive away when the officer stopped her. Surveying cases … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Govt assertion house was abandoned wasn’t reasonable; yard kept, trash bin out front, van in driveway
The officers weren’t reasonable in their conclusion that the house they searched was abandoned. There was no property record check and the yard was “reasonably kept” with a trash bin out for collection, bars on the windows, and a white … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Def was “stopped” when he was ordered to turn around at gunpoint; RS wasn’t dispelled just by minor discrepancies in clothing, skin tone, and weight
“[T]here was a clear show of authority when Powell approached Bey with his gun drawn and ordered him to turn around. This command would have conveyed to a reasonable person that he was being ordered to restrict his movement. Bey … Continue reading